TUNED
The TUNED was an elite force of agents created and overseen by the Tipharean Ground Investigation Bureau (G.I.B.) which carried out various missions on the Earth's surface, as Tiphareans faced exile if they left the floating city. Alita (codenamed A-1) was the first member of the TUNED and operated alone in the Badlands for ten years. A series of combat androids, the TUNED AR Series 2, was eventually developed to replace her and were activated near the end of the Barjack War. However they were shortly after left to fend for themselves when the G.I.B. was purged. Three AR units (short for "Alita Replica"), Elf (AR-11), Sechs (AR-6), and Zwölf (AR-12), survived and appear in Last Order. History In ES 576, Bigott Eizenburg, the inaugural member of the G.I.B., deployed 1,000 TR-55 artificial life forms to the surface to scout for potential candidates for the TUNED.Gunnm LO History timeline. Because of the nature of the TUNED the qualifications sought could not be filled by native Tiphareans nor the netmen or deckmen from the Scrapyard. The G.I.B. was searching for someone who was the "living embodiment of the ultimate in combat programming"Battle 44 to serve as a prototype from which to base and create future agents from. One of the TR-55s, Kimji, found Alita at the start of her motorball career and began to monitor her covertly, recording and transmitting audio and video of her life to the G.I.B. Plot ''Battle Angel Alita'' .]] Following her climactic battle with Zapan, the G.I.B. barely found out about the decision to execute Alita for the Class A crime of using a firearm and was just able to issue a stop order in time to prevent the destruction of her brain. Bigott then had a neural link set up to enable him to communicate with Alita's mind. He revealed that she had just been saved from death and that she had been monitored for two years. Bigott carefully framed his offer to Alita to become a member of the TUNED as something that would give her life a purpose as opposed to the rejection and isolation she had previously experienced. What really convinced Alita to accept however, was that her primary mission would be to locate and arrest Desty Nova, who had promised to resurrect Daisuke Ido. She accepted Bigott's offer and joined the TUNED. .]] Alita subsequently spent the next decade as a TUNED agent operating in the Badlands.Battle 49 What she did during this time was largely not revealed, although in ES 586 she was assigned a mission to terminate a wayward Deckman 50.Homecoming She did not operate against the Barjack until ES 590, when she was assigned to ride Factory Train 12 and foiled an attack by Knucklehead. Alita did not come into contact with Nova again until after she had returned from Alhambra and defeated a team of cyborg ninjas sent to attack her. When she tried to interrogate one of them he regurgitated a monitor and she saw Nova again for the first time in a decade. He revealed that he knew that she was now a TUNED agent known as A-1, and that to capture him, she would have to defeat the Barjack's leader, Den. This occurred after she and Koyomi had been rescued by Kaos when they had fallen into a sinkhole near Barjack territory. Den had learned of Alita's presence thanks to the EPR transmitter in Kaos' chest and demanded that he surrender her. Alita took on Den's men to give Kaos the opportunity to flee and dueled Den himself. She was nearly defeated but saved by the timely invention of her operator, Lou Collins. After being given the Solenoid Quench Gun, Alita severely damaged Den, but could not finish him off when Koyomi threw herself in front of him as a shield. .]] Ten days later,Battle 42 the TUNED AR Series 2 were activated and their operators were brought in. Kaos had learned the location of the Granite Inn thanks to his connection with Den and Alita was half an hour away when she was waylaid by the first of the AR Series to appear, AR-2. Bigott then revealed the true intention of the TUNED operation and that Alita would be replaced. She was nearly killed by AR-2 when she lost her will to fight but was saved by Lou. Following this, Bigott assigned the remaining AR units to anti-Barjack operations. He then had Alita continue her original mission to arrest Nova with the promise that she would be free upon its completion.Battle 45 At the same time, AR-10 appeared as the Heng was about to fire on Tiphares and issued a warning to surrender. This was disregarded and the Heng was fired, but the shell could not penetrate the aerial city's force field. Before a second shot could fire, the Heng was destroyed by the Abaddon. AR-10 then mopped up the survivors, during which she was killed by Fury. Although the Barjack's primary means to attack Tiphares had been destroyed, the victory was short-lived. At the Granite Inn Alita defeated Bigott's betrayal and Nova's attempts to trap her with the Ouroboros Program. When she asked why Ido had been in such pain and had erased his memory, Nova revealed the existence of the brain bio-chips by sawing open his own head. Bigott was so shocked by this that he confirmed it for himself by cutting open his own head. When he saw his bio-chip he lost his mind and wandered back into the G.I.B. control room, revealing its existence to the operators. This triggered a swift and deadly response by the Medical Inspection Bureau, and an M.I.B. Machine purged them all, bringing an end to the G.I.B. ''Last Order'' in Phase 5.]] With the fall of the G.I.B. the TUNED ceased to exist and the surviving AR units became autonomous and had to fend for themselves. AR-6 developed the desire to prove his own existence and renamed himself Sechs. He systematically hunted down and killed his sisters with the exceptions of AR-11 and AR-12, who had begun to cooperate with each other and defeated, but did not kill him. Before this, Sechs was able to track down and kill AR-4, who had encountered Figure Four. Nearly a year later, Nova II located the three surviving ARs and brought them with him to Tiphares. All surviving members of the TUNED came face to face in the midst of the Tipharean civil war. Sechs challenged Alita, but was defeated while Elf and Zwölf briefly interfered but largely stayed neutral. Following the end of the civil war Alita agreed to join Nova II in space to recover Lou's brain from the Ketheres Brain Incubator. After Nova II was captured by Aga Mbadi, Sechs, Elf, and Zwölf eventually joined the team formed by Alita and Ping Wu, the Space Angels, to compete in the Tenth Zenith of Things Tournament. Agents The following members of the TUNED appear in the original manga and Last Order. Key:† = Confirmed death Equipment and weapons The TUNED was issued a variety of equipment and weapons which was much more advanced than anything that was developed by the Factory or the Barjack thanks to the more sophisticated Tipharean technology. Alita was also equipped with various knives and grenades. *Arachno: A spider-shaped bomb. *Damascus Blade: Alita' signature weapon, modified into a giant . *Firefly: Used to generate plasma or open tunnels. *Interactive interface: A small, remote controlled body created by Dr. Russell to enable Alita to interact with Lou. Later used by Sechs. *Laser bug: A communications relay. *Lice probe: Miniature probes. *Missile bee: Remote controlled cyborg missiles. *Mobile Unit: A high speed single-wheeled motorcycle used by Alita as personal transportation. It could be controlled remotely by the agent's operator. .]] *Mono-molecular wire: An extremely strong wire later used as a primary weapon by Elf and Zwölf. *Solenoid Quench Gun: An electromagnetic high velocity gun that fires a solenoid slug at 5 km/s, or roughly 11,000 miles per hour. It was used by Alita and AR-10, and later adapted for personal use by Sechs. *Solid Wing: A personal aerial unit utilizing scalar tech similar to the Abaddon. Applying the "Hutchison Effect", this ordinance is capable of generating a shield against small arms fire, granting flight, and projecting long range destructive waves from several meters off for the TUNED, used by AR-10. Could be modified to hold other armaments. *Support System Gabriel: An unmanned aerial vehicle that directly supported Alita. *TUNED body: A cyborg body supported by nanotechnology based on Alita's own body that was used by all agents. *TUNED body armour: A type of . *TUNED pistol: The standard sidearm that fires high velocity rounds. *TUNED rifle: A used by Alita. References Category:TUNED